344 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



equality is accounted for by tlie physical strength required for its 

 perpetration being possessed equally by the sexes. In crimes against 

 persons, the influence of this factor can be traced, but not in so marked 

 a manner as in the crimes referred to. In poisoning, for instance, the 

 ratio between the sexes is 91 women to 100 men,' and while active 

 mental traits may in part exist as causes for this nearly equal ratio of 

 the sexes, yet the total absence of any need of physical strength must 

 be given due value. Poison is essentially a weajjon of weakness. It 

 figures largely in history as the agent of women and politicians. One 

 reason, which probably existed in mediaaval days, but which cannot be 

 regarded in modern times, was the difficulty of detection in cases of 

 death by poisoning. It was surrounded by an atmosphere of horrible 

 suspicion, which was never relieved by certainty. It Avas selected as 

 a political agent by reason of this secrecy, by both sexes, and thus at 

 this period had no sexual qualities. Modern advances in chemistry 

 have rendered poisoning one of the most surely detected of all crimes, 

 and its perpetration has become a characteristic of the weak and cow- 

 ardly. In some other offenses, as in incendiarism, in which physical 

 strength is as unessential as in poisoning, the ratio between the sexes 

 falls to 34 in 100. Although this is a crime well within the compass 

 of woman's physical abilities, yet it involves other elements, which 

 deter women from its perpetration. Motive, which is the exciting 

 cause of crime and enters largely into the intensity of tbe tendency, 

 cannot act so powerfully in the latter as the former crime. In order 

 to kill, a stronger motive is required than to burn. Incendiarism 

 requires considerable personal exposure, and danger of immediate 

 detection. Parricide with a ratio of 50 to 100, and wounding of par- 

 ents with a ratio of 22 to 100 (Quetelet), offer a remarkable contrast 

 to murder and the wounding of sti'angers, with a ratio taken together 

 of 9 to 100. The necessity of physical strength exists equally in the 

 perpetration of these crimes. The marked difference in ratio, there- 

 fore, must be explained by other means. Opportunity and domes- 

 ticity, already referred to in a former paper, exist largely as the cause 

 of the difference. M. Quetelet, speaking in general terms of the in- 

 fluence of opportunity and domestic habits upon woman's criminal 

 career, remarks: "They can only conceive and execute guilty projects 

 on individuals with whom they are in the greatest intimacy ; thus, 

 compared with man, her assassinations are more often in her family 

 than out of it." It would be difficult to present a stronger argument 

 of the influence of woman's social position as a restraint to crime. 

 As we observe in the crimes just referred to, it is not the enormity of 

 the offense which restrains, for we have in parricide twelve times the 

 frequency of murder; it is not weakness, for then parricide, murder, 

 and wounding, should agree in frequency. We are able to trace in 

 this no influence of morality, it is simply the result of the varying 

 degrees of opportunity, domestic life, and mental peculiarities. 



' Quetelet, loc. cit., p. 91. 



